Explore our
courses
courses
Explore our
products
products
Embarking on a career as a junior UX (user experience) designer? The first crucial step, even before diving into interviews or job searches, is to build an impactful UX portfolio. This blog unveils essential tips for creating a beginner UX designer portfolio that not only avoids an amateurish appearance but also captivates prospective employers.
Why Develop a UX Portfolio?
Beyond showcasing your skills, your portfolio serves as a visual representation of your design perspective. Although much of UX design may not be inherently visual, employers often conflate UX with UI, seeking candidates proficient in both areas. This blog aims to guide you in constructing a compelling portfolio that not only emphasises your UX skills but also showcases your UI design abilities, providing a competitive edge in the junior UX designer job market.
Addressing the Case Study Conundrum
For junior UX designers, the demand for real-life case studies can be challenging. Many employers look for evidence of your UX design in action. This blog unravels the confusion and frustration, offering insights into how to tackle this requirement and create impactful case studies, even without extensive real-world experience.
1. Curate (or Create) Projects
Ensure your UX portfolio features a minimum of five distinct design projects, like (Presentation website, Streaming mobile app, E-commerce website, Mobile Banking Dashboard and Social media Desktop Dashboard). This diverse selection offers employers a comprehensive view of your capabilities. If you lack five existing projects, employ your imagination to create or redesign experiences, just pick apps that you use or you like and redesign those, give them your own unique spin, and justify why you redesigned them like that. For example you can redesign even famous apps like YouTube and come up with your unique concept on how the desktop app should look. The example below showcases the redesign of the platform and the reasoning behind this new design is that the designer wanted to reduce the cognitive overload for the user. This proactive approach demonstrates initiative and creativity, essential qualities in the competitive UX/UI design industry.
2.Selectively Showcase Your Designs
Quality over quantity is key. Be discerning about the projects included in your UX design portfolio. Opt for designs that either reflect your unique perspective as a UX designer, demonstrate your growth trajectory, or highlight specific skills. Just follow this simple rule 5 divers projects but only one from each category, don't show 20 app designs and 20 dashboards, just pick the best one in each category and focus all your efforts into showcasing that and highlighting the best project you got. On the contrary if you would like to specialise let's say in mobile apps and that is the only thing you enjoy designing, then only showcase mobile apps, but make sure that you pick different categories, one can be a food delivering app, another one can be a banking app, a fitness app and so on...but always go for quality!
3. Define Your Design Identity
Differentiate yourself by defining your design identity. Reflect on your approach to UX design, considering the experiences you aim to create. Your portfolio should tell a story beyond being a UX designer, similar to how Walt Disney engineered magical experiences. Identify commonalities in your past projects to articulate your design point of view, a unique selling point that sets you apart in the industry. For example maybe you really enjoy websites with big bold texts or colorful websites. Then if you are very good at those, showcase those type of designs, this way when a potential client will aproach you they will know exactly what they can expect from you. And this will not only help them make a better decision for their business but it will also help you as they will not request you to design something that is completely out of your comfort zone.
4. Detail-Oriented Case Studies
Select a few projects to delve into as case studies. Document your process from conceptualisation to execution, explaining your decision-making and the tools/resources employed. Each case study should unfold as a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Highlight conflicts or challenges encountered and showcase how you creatively resolved them, providing a well-rounded understanding of your problem-solving skills. I've seen so many portfolios just showcasing the final product, and don't get me wrong, I'm guilty of that as well sometimes. But the problem with that is if you do that you are not showcasing your client your true capabilities which is solving problems. So to fix this always show the process. Here is what the problem of this project was, these are my first initial sketches, this is what I picked out of all of these and here is how the final product looked. Trust me if you start doing this simple thing, your portfolio will already be better then 99% of the designer out there.
5. Define the Target Market
Incorporate context into your project descriptions by outlining the target market for each project. Addressing the needs of the target market demonstrates your user-centric approach and adds depth to your design narratives. This is so important when creating not only a portfolio but any project. It's extremely important before designing anything to define your target audience. And it doesn't need to be a huge 5 page description of the ideal customer a simple age demographic like (age 18-35) and a description like (Passionate about outdoor sports and camping gear) will be enough. If you just add these 2 lines before you show me a project I can instantly get context of what you wanted to achieve with that design that you are showcasing in your portfolio.
6.Visual Appeal
Strike a balance between text and visuals in your UX portfolio. Use visuals strategically to enhance your narrative, illustrating each stage of your design process or user workflow. Avoid overwhelming viewers with endless screenshots; instead, select visuals that precisely convey your UX design story. This also ties with the quality over quantity point. Don't show 20 images of your process with every single sticky note you wrote. One image from your workshop showing the process is enough. Pick the best one and use that!
Conclusion
Even as a junior UX designer, you have the potential to create a remarkable portfolio. Leverage the provided tips to craft a portfolio that not only rivals those of experienced designers but also sets you apart in the competitive UX/UI design landscape. With a thoughtfully curated and detailed portfolio, you'll stand out and leave a lasting impression on potential employers.
